If only two hundred become criminals, while one hundred commit suicide,
one hundred end as maniacs, and the other six hundred remain honest in
their social condition, then poverty alone is not sufficient to explain
criminality. We must add the anthropological and telluric factor. Only
by means of these three elements of natural influence can criminality be
explained. Of course, the influence of either the anthropological or
telluric or social element varies from case to case. If you have a case
of simple theft, you may have a far greater influence of the social
factor than of the anthropological factor. On the other hand, if you
have a case of murder, the anthropological element will have a far
greater influence than the social. And so on in every case of crime, and
every individual that you will have to judge on the bench of the
criminal.
The anthropological factor. It is precisely here that the genius of
Cesare Lombroso established a new science, because in his search after
the causes of crime he studied the anthropological condition of the
criminal. This condition concerns not only the organic and anatomical
constitution, but also the psychological, it represents the organic and
psychological personality of the criminal. Every one of us inherits at
birth, and personifies in life, a certain organic and psychological
combination. This constitutes the individual factor of human activity,
which either remains normal through life, or becomes criminal or insane.
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